The World Cup is a
season-long competition. The winner will be the rider with the greatest
number of points achieved via those awarded to their finishing position in
the qualifying events. Not everyone who finishes a World Cup gets points,
there are only points for the top 20 finishers in any of the 11 events
throughout the year. Ten out of the eleven events are road races. The
winner gets 75 points, second 50 points, third 35 points and so on, down
to the twentieth finisher, who gets one point. In the other event, a team
time trial, the points are slightly different, reduced, with only 35
points for the winner, whilst second gets 30 points and third 25 points.
The points still run down to one for the twentieth finisher.

The leader of the World Cup
each year wears a special jersey. It is white, with blue sleeves and
rainbow colour pattern on the chest.

Judith
Arndt - World Cup winner, 2008

In the past, the final
event, the Rund Um Die Nürnberger Altstadt, has seen double points
awarded to each of the top twenty finishers. This is not the case in the
2008 rules. Each event in the series will award the same number of points
(see below). In 2006, Nicole Cooke (Univega) had already sewn up the title
with one round remaining, despite 150 points being available in the final
event. In 2007, as leader after the penultimate event, she had an 80 point
advantage over second-placed contender, Marianne Vos (DSB Bank). The
double points on offer meant that Vos, who contested the sprint in
Nurnberg and finished first, took 150 points. Cooke was suffering with a
knee injury which required subsequent surgery and coasted in with the
bunch in 34th place. The Raleigh-Lifeforce rider had led the 2007
competition since winning the first event in Geelong and was defeated in
her defence only in the final event in September.

Points available for
road race events

Position

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Points

75

50

35

30

27

24

21

18

15

11

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

Points
available for team time trial event

Position

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Points
per Team

140

120

100

80

64

60

56

52

48

44

40

36

32

28

24

20

16

12

8

4

Points
per rider

35

30

25

20

16

15

14

13

12

11

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

There is also a team
classification in the World Cup, won in the past two years by Thomas
Campana's Raleigh Lifeforce (Univega in 2006) squad. The competition acknowledges
the role of teams, even in the individual competition. Thus, teams of 6
riders (on the day) are allowed to enter each event. A minimum of 4 must
start the race. It is permissible for team managers to use different combinations
of riders within the 6 allowed within each race, changing the team to suit
their strengths and the terrain involved on the 'parcours' from the
squad of riders listed in the team for the year.

As mentioned above, there
is a team time trial in the World Cup this year. This will take place in
August and will be organised by the same committee as hosts the "Open de
Suède Vårgårda" road
race which is included in the series two days prior. This is not the first
time a TTT has been included in the World Cup. In 2006, the Danish round
of the competition was a TTT, dubbed the "Ladies Golden Hour",
it was the first time a team time trial had been included and was won by
Univega by just 2 seconds from Buitenpoort-Flexpoint. See
top of page click here for the link to 2006 World Cup coverage.
Or
click here to see the Golden Hour coverage from 2006

The first 7 events on the
calendar will be of interest not only for their part in the World Cup
competition. They are also nominated by several National Federations as
selection events for the road race at the Beijing Olympics in August.
Riders will be out to impress selectors with their performances as well as
wishing to accrue World Cup points. Furthermore, the time period UCI
points for qualification to the Olympic road race finishes on 31 May 2008.
Three riders from the top 16 ranked nations and two riders from the
nations ranked 17th to 24th will make up the peloton of 67 riders.
Included within the 67 are 3 riders from the top 3 'B World Championship'
nation rankings for 2007**.

**
'B World Championships' are run for the small nations by the UCI. Nations
which are not otherwise represented at international level. (China was
included in the "B Worlds" in Switzerland 2003 and now competes
in the main rankings!) The "B Worlds" were held in South Africa
in July 2007.

Type this address into the
"To" line of a new email message in your email programme.

The WomensCycling.net email
address is displayed as a graphic in order to reduce the amount of 'spam' email
received from programmes which 'crawl' the internet for sites with addresses
displayed in text and then overwhelm that address with junk, or even forge the
address in junk messages that they generate and send to others. Sorry for any
inconvenience this approach causes you.